Margaret Thatcher Dead: Former UK Prime Minister Dies Of Stroke | The Huffington Post Margaret Thatcher Dead: Former UK Prime Minister Dies Of Stroke 04/08/2013 07:54 am ET | Updated Jun 08, 2013 12k AP/The Huffington Post The Associated Press reports that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher has died of a stroke. The news was confirmed by her spokesman Lord Bell. "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning," Lord Tim Bell said , according to Reuters. More from the Associated Press: LONDON _ Love her or loathe her, one thing's beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain. The Iron Lady who ruled for 11 remarkable years imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation _ breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing Street. Thatcher’s former spokesman, Tim Bell, said that the former prime minister had died Monday morning of a stroke. She was 87.

For admirers, Thatcher was a savior who rescued Britain from ruin and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary economic renaissance. For critics, she was a heartless tyrant who ushered in an era of greed that kicked the weak out onto the streets and let the rich become filthy rich. "Let us not kid ourselves, she was a very divisive figure," said Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's press secretary for her entire term. "She was a real toughie. She was a patriot with a great love for this country, and she raised the standing of Britain abroad." Thatcher was the first _ and still only _ female prime minister in Britain's history. But she often found feminists tiresome and was not above using her handbag as a prop to underline her swagger and power. A grocer's daughter, she rose to the top of Britain's snobbish hierarchy the hard way, and envisioned a classless society that rewarded hard work and determination. She was a trailblazer who at first believed trailblazing impossible: Thatcher told the Liverpool Daily Post in 1974 that she did not think a woman would serve as party leader or prime minister during her lifetime. But once in power, she never showed an ounce of doubt.

Thatcher could be intimidating to those working for her: British diplomats sighed with relief on her first official visit to Washington D.C. as prime minister to find that she was relaxed enough to enjoy a glass of whiskey and a half-glass of wine during an embassy lunch, according to official documents. Like her close friend and political ally Ronald Reagan, Thatcher seemed motivated by an unshakable belief that free markets would build a better country than reliance on a strong, central government. Another thing she shared with the American president: a tendency to reduce problems to their basics, choose a path, and follow it to the end, no matter what the opposition. She formed a deep attachment to the man she called "Ronnie" _ some spoke of it as a schoolgirl crush. Still, she would not back down when she disagreed with him on important matters, even though the United States was the richer and vastly stronger partner in the so-called "special relationship." Thatcher was at her brashest when Britain was challenged. When Argentina's military junta seized the remote Falklands Islands from Britain in 1982, she did not hesitate even though her senior military advisers said it might not be feasible to reclaim the islands.

She simply would not allow Britain to be pushed around, particularly by military dictators, said Ingham, who recalls the Falklands War as the tensest period of Thatcher's three terms in power. When diplomacy failed, she dispatched a military task force that accomplished her goal, despite the naysayers. "That required enormous leadership," Ingham said. "This was a formidable undertaking, this was a risk with a capital R-I-S-K, and she demonstrated her leadership by saying she would give the military their marching orders and let them get on with it." In deciding on war, Thatcher overruled Foreign Office specialists who warned her about the dangers of striking back. She was infuriated by warnings about the dangers to British citizens in Argentina and the difficulty of getting support from the U.N. Security Council. "When you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them," she said in her memoir, "Downing Street Years." "And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence?

Not while I was prime minister." Thatcher's determination to reclaim the islands brought her into conflict with Reagan, who dispatched Secretary of State Alexander Haig on a shuttle mission to London and Buenos Aires to seek a peaceful solution even as British warships approached the Falklands. A private diary kept by U.S. diplomat Jim Rentschler captures Thatcher at this crisis point. "And here's Maggie, appearing in a flower-decorated salon adjoining the small dining room (...) sipping orange juice and sherry," Rentschler wrote. "La Thatcher is really quite fetching in a dark velvet two-piece ensemble with grosgrain piping and a soft hairdo that heightens her blond English coloring." But the niceties faded over the dinner table. "High color is in her cheeks, a note of rising indignation in her voice, she leans across the polished table and flatly rejects what she calls the 'woolliness' of our secondstage formulation," Rentschler writes. Needless to say, Haig's peace mission soon collapsed. The relatively quick triumph of British forces revived Thatcher's political fortunes, which had been faltering along with the British economy.

She won an overwhelming victory in 1983, tripling her majority in the House of Commons. She trusted her gut instinct, famously concluding early on that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev represented a clear break in the Soviet tradition of autocratic rulers. She pronounced that the West could "do business" with him, a position that influenced Reagan's vital dealings with Gorbachev in the twilight of the Soviet era. It was heady stuff for a woman who had little training in foreign affairs when she triumphed over a weak field of indecisive Conservative Party candidates to take over the party leadership in 1975 and, ultimately run as the party's candidate for prime minister. She profited from the enormous crisis facing the Labour Party government led by Harold Wilson and later James Callaghan. Britain was near economic collapse, its currency propped up by the International Monetary Fund, and its once defiant spirit seemingly broken. The sagging Labour government had no Parliamentary majority after 1977, and the next year it suffered through a "winter of discontent" with widespread strikes disrupting vital public services, including hospital care and even gravedigging. The government's effort to hold the line on inflation led to chaos in the streets.

Britain seemed adrift, no longer a credible world power, falling from second to third tier status. It was then, Thatcher wrote in her memoirs, that she came to the unshakable, almost mystical belief that only she could save Britain. She cited a deep "inner conviction" that this would be her role. Events seemed to be moving her way when she led the Conservative Party to victory in 1979 with a commitment to reduce the state's role and champion private enterprise. She was underestimated at first _ by her own party, by the media, later by foreign adversaries. But they all soon learned to respect her. Thatcher's "Iron Lady" nickname was coined by Soviet journalists, a grudging testament to her ferocious will and determination. Thatcher set about upending decades of liberal doctrine, successfully challenging Britain's welfare state and socialist traditions, in the process becoming the reviled bete noire of the country's leftwing intelligentsia. She is perhaps best remembered for her hardline position during the pivotal strike in 1984 and 1985 when she faced down coal miners in an ultimately successful bid to break the power of Britain's unions.

It was a reshaping of British economic and political landscape that endures to this day. It is for this that she is revered by free-market conservatives, who say the restructuring of the economy led to a boom in that made London the rival of New York as a global financial center. The left demonized her as an implacably hostile union buster, with stone-cold indifference to the poor. But her economic philosophy eventually crossed party lines: Tony Blair led a revamped Labour Party to victory by adopting some of her ideas. Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on Oct. 13, 1925. She learned the values of thrift, discipline and industry as the dutiful daughter of Alfred Roberts, a grocer and Methodist lay preacher who eventually became the mayor of Grantham, a modest-sized town in Lincolnshire 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of London. Thatcher's personality, like that of so many of her contemporaries, was shaped in part by the traumatic events during her childhood. When World War II broke out, her hometown was one of the early targets for Luftwaffe bombs.

Her belief in the need to stand up to aggressors was rooted in the failure of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to appease Adolf Hitler rather than confront him. Thatcher said she learned much about the world simply by studying her father's business. She grew up in the family's apartment just above the shop. "Before I read a line from the great liberal economists, I knew from my father's accounts that the free market was like a vast sensitive nervous system, responding to events and signals all over the world to meet the ever-changing needs of peoples in different countries, from different classes, of different religions, with a kind of benign indifference to their status," she wrote in her memoirs. "The economic history of Britain for the next 40 years confirmed and amplified almost every item of my father's practical economics. In effect, I had been equipped at an early age with the ideal mental outlook and tools of analysis for reconstructing an economy ravaged by state socialism." Educated at Oxford, Thatcher began her political career in her mid-20s with an unsuccessful 1950 campaign for a parliamentary seat in the Labour Party stronghold of Dartford. She earned nationwide publicity as the youngest female candidate in the country despite her loss at the polls.

She was defeated again the next year, but on the campaign trail she met Denis Thatcher, a successful businessman whom she married in 1951. Their twins Mark and Carol were born two years later. "She was beautiful, gay, very kind and thoughtful," Denis Thatcher said in an interview 25 years later. "Who could meet Margaret without being completely slain by her personality and intellectual brilliance?" As the first male Downing Street spouse, Denis Thatcher stayed out of the limelight to a large degree while supporting his wife on her many travels and public engagements. He was said to give her important behind-the-scenes advice on Cabinet choices and other personnel matters, but this role was not publicly discussed. Margaret Thatcher first won election to Parliament in 1959, representing Finchley in north London. She climbed the Conservative Party ladder quickly, joining the Cabinet as education secretary in 1970. In that post, she earned the unwanted nickname "Thatcher the milk snatcher" because of her reduction of school milk programs. It was a taste of battles to come.

As prime minister, she sold off one state industry after another: British Telecom, British Gas, Rolls-Royce, British Airways, British Coal, British Steel, the water companies and the electricity distribution system among them. She was proud of her government's role in privatizing some public housing, turning tenants into homeowners. She ruffled feathers simply by being herself. She had faith _ sometimes blind faith _ in the clarity of her vision and little use for those of a more cautious mien. Success in the Falklands War set the stage for a pivotal fight with the National Union of Miners, which began a 51-week strike in March, 1984 to oppose the government's plans to close a number of mines. The miners battled police on picket lines but couldn't beat Thatcher, and returned to work without gaining any concessions. She survived an audacious 1984 assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army that nearly succeeded. The IRA detonated a bomb in her hotel in Brighton during a party conference, killing and injuring senior government figures, but leaving the prime minister and her husband unharmed. Thatcher won a third term in another landslide in 1987, but may have become overconfident.

She trampled over cautionary advice from her own ministers in 1989 and 1990 by imposing a hugely controversial "community charge" tax that was quickly dubbed a "poll tax" by opponents. It was designed to move Britain away from a property tax and instead imposed a flat rate tax on every adult except for retirees and people who were registered unemployed. That decision may have been a sign that hubris was undermining Thatcher's political acumen. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in London and other cities, leading to some of the worst riots in the British capital for more than a century. The shocking sight of Trafalgar Square turned into a smoldering battleground on March 31, 1990 helped convince many Conservative figures that Thatcher had stayed too long. "How could a leader who was wise make 13 million people pay a tax they had never paid before? It just showed that she was no longer thinking in a rational way," one of her junior ministers, David Mellor, said in a BBC documentary. For Conservatives in Parliament, it was a question of survival.

They feared vengeful voters would turn them out of office at the next election, and for many that fear trumped any gratitude they might have felt for their longtime leader. Eight months after the riots, Thatcher was gone, struggling to hold back tears as she left Downing Street after being ousted by her own party. It was a bitter end for Thatcher's active political career _ her family said she felt a keen sense of betrayal even years later. Thatcher wrote several best-selling memoirs after leaving office and was a frequent speaker on the international circuit before she suffered several small strokes that in 2002 led her to curtail her lucrative public speaking career. Denis Thatcher died the following year; they had been married more than a half century. Thatcher's later years were marred by her son Mark Thatcher's murky involvement in bankrolling a 2004 coup in Equatorial Guinea. He was fined and received a suspended sentence for his role in the tawdry affair. She suffered from dementia in her final years, and her public appearances became increasingly rare. She is survived by her two children, Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher, and her grandchildren.

Also on HuffPost: Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female PM, dead at 87 - CNN.com Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female PM, dead at 87 By Richard Allen Greene, CNN Updated 9:49 PM ET, Mon April 8, 2013 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. JUST WATCHED The life and legacy of the 'Iron Lady' 03:40 Story highlights Thatcher, Britain's "Iron Lady," died after suffering a stroke Monday, her spokeswoman said She retired from public life in 2002 after a stroke As British PM from 1975 to 1990, she played a key role in ending the Cold War But Thatcher opposed reunification of Germany Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a towering figure in postwar British and world politics and the only woman to become British prime minister, has died at the age of 87. She suffered a stroke Monday, her spokeswoman said. A British government source said she died at the Ritz Hotel in London. Thatcher's funeral will be at St.

Paul's Cathedral, with full military honors, followed by a private cremation, the British prime minister's office announced. Thatcher served from 1975 to 1990 as leader of the Conservative Party. She was called the "Iron Lady" for her personal and political toughness. She retired from public life after a stroke in 2002 and suffered several strokes after that. Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Margaret Thatcher , the first woman to become British prime minister, has died at 87 after a stroke, a spokeswoman said Monday, April 8. Known as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher, as Conservative Party leader, was prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Here she visits British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street in London in June 2010. Hide Caption 1 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher with her parents and sister Muriel in 1945.

Thatcher, born Margaret Hilda Roberts in 1925, studied chemistry at Oxford University and worked as a research chemist before becoming a barrister in 1954. Hide Caption 2 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Conservative Party candidate Margaret Roberts, the youngest candidate for any party in the 1950 general election, works in a laboratory where she was a research chemist. Hide Caption 3 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – The Conservative Party candidate for Dartford in Kent, England, meets some potential constituents in January 1950. Hide Caption 4 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher chats with a police officer outside the House of Commons, where she took a seat as a member of Parliament for Finchley in October 1959. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses a Conservative Party conference in October 1967. Hide Caption 6 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher in 1970.

Within five years, she would become leader of the Conservatives. Hide Caption 7 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Prime Minister Edward Heath with 13 of 15 newly elected Conservative women members of Parliament outside the House of Commons in June 1970. Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science under Heath. Hide Caption 8 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher plays the piano for her husband, Denis, and their twins, Mark and Carol, then 17, in September 1970. Hide Caption 9 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher takes over from Edward Heath as leader of the Conservative Party in 1975. Hide Caption 10 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses Conservatives at the start of the 1979 election campaign. William Whitelaw, at her right, later became home secretary and deputy prime minister under Thatcher.

Hide Caption 11 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, becoming the first female prime minister of a European country, stands with her husband, Denis, outside 10 Downing Street in May 1979 after her party's success in the general election. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher with her new Cabinet in June 1979. Hide Caption 13 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and Thatcher at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in September 1982. They were holding meetings leading up to the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong in 1984. Hide Caption 14 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher meets personnel aboard the HMS Antrim during her trip to the Falkand Islands in January 1983. The United Kingdom fought a short war with Argentina over the Falklands in 1982, responding with force when Buenos Aires laid claim to the islands.

Hide Caption 15 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and her husband, Denis, left, visit a school in the Falkland Islands in 1983. Hide Caption 16 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher secures her second term of office in June 1983. She won a landslide re-election on the heels of the Falklands victory, with her Conservative Party taking a majority of seats in Parliament with 42% of the vote. Hide Caption 17 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan share a joke in London in June 1984. The British politician enjoyed a close working relationship with Reagan, with whom she shared similar conservative views. Hide Caption 18 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses a Conservative Party conference in Brighton, England, following an IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel, where many delegates were staying, in October 1984.

Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher addresses the Conservative Party in May 1985. Hide Caption 20 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher receives Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at 10 Downing Street in April 1986. Hide Caption 21 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the start of talks at the Kremlin in Moscow in March 1987. Hide Caption 22 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher and her husband, Denis, wave to the crowd at a London polling station in June 1987. She was re-elected to another term as prime minister that year with a slightly reduced majority. Hide Caption 23 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher dances with Reagan in November 1988 following a state dinner given in her honor at the White House.

Hide Caption 24 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher greets Nelson Mandela on the steps of 10 Downing Street in July 1990. The anti-apartheid activist and future South African president had been freed that year after more than 25 years as political prisoner. Hide Caption 25 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, flanked by her husband Denis, addresses the press for the last time at 10 Downing Street before her resignation as prime minister in November 1990 after an internal leadership struggle among Conservatives. Hide Caption 26 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – The former prime minister chats with President George H.W. Bush in March 1991 in the White House Oval Office before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The award is the highest civilian honor bestowed in the United States.

Hide Caption 27 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, with her son, Mark, and her daughter, Carol, watches the coffin of her husband, Denis, during his funeral in July 2003 in London. Denis Thatcher died at age 88. Hide Caption 28 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher touches the flag-draped coffin of Reagan as he lies in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in June 2004. In a prerecorded video at his funeral, she called Reagan "a great president, a great American and a great man." "And I have lost a dear friend," she said. Hide Caption 29 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher, from left, Cherie Blair, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair attend a church service at Pangbourne College in June 2007 to mark the 25th anniversary of victory in the Falklands War.

Hide Caption 30 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – An usher helps Thatcher, now a baroness, to her seat during the state opening of Parliament in November 2009. Hide Caption 31 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – The ex-prime minister helps unveil a portrait of herself at the opening of the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London in March 2009. Hide Caption 32 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Pope Benedict XVI greets Thatcher in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican in May 2009. Hide Caption 33 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher attends the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament in May 2010. Hide Caption 34 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher waves from the door of her London home after a hospital stay to operate on a broken arm in June 2009.

She had a pin placed in her shoulder after suffering a fall. Hide Caption 35 of 36 Photos: Photos: Thatcher through the years Margaret Thatcher through the years – Thatcher waves to journalists from her London home after another hospital visit -- this time with a bout of flu -- in November 2010. Hide Caption 1 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher and Reagan chat at a British Embassy dinner in Washington in February 1981. Hide Caption 2 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher, right, and Reagan at the summit of the seven industrialized powers at Versailles in Paris in 1982. Hide Caption 3 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher reads a joint declaration in the Guildhall as Reagan and French President Francois Mitterand listen after a summit conference in London in May 1984.

Hide Caption 4 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher and Reagan listen to the American national anthem at Kensington Palace Gardens after Reagan's arrival from Ireland for a summit in London in June 1984. Hide Caption 5 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher and Reagan share a joke at her residence, No. 10 Downing St., in London in June 1984. Hide Caption 6 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Reagan and Thatcher take a golf cart around Camp David in December 1984. Hide Caption 7 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – First lady Nancy Reagan meets Thatcher at No. 10 Downing St. in July 1986. Hide Caption 8 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher and Reagan meet in the garden of the Cipriani Hotel in Venice, Italy, during an economic summit in June 1987.

Hide Caption 9 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – The two world leaders dance during a White House state dinner in November 1988. Hide Caption Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher and Reagan attend a formal event in January 1989. Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher pays her respects at Reagan's casket during his viewing at the Capitol in June 2004. Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: Photos: Thatcher and Reagan's friendship Thatcher and Reagan's friendship – Thatcher sits behind Ronald Prescott Reagan as he comforts his mother, Nancy Reagan, during the late president's interment ceremony in Simi Valley, California, in June 2004.

Hide Caption Margaret Thatcher - Biography - IMDb Margaret Thatcher Biography Showing all 91 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (5) | Trivia (32) | Personal Quotes (47) Overview (5) 5' 5½" (1.66 m) Mini Bio (1) Margaret Thatcher was born on October 13, 1925 in Grantham, England, the younger daughter of Alfred and Beatrice Roberts. Her father was a greengrocer and respected town leader, serving as lay-leader with their church, city-alderman and then as mayor. He taught Margaret never to do things because other people are doing them; do what you think is right and persuade others to follow you. She attended Oxford University from 1943 to 1947 and earned a degree in Chemistry, but it was clear from early on that politics was her true calling. She stood as a Conservative candidate from Dartford in the 1950 and 1951 elections. She married Denis Thatcher in December 1951 and they had twin children, Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher .

She practiced tax law for a time in the 1950s, but was elected to Parliament from Finchley in 1959. Two years later, she was appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Pensions. In 1970, she was appointed Minister for Education and earned the title "Thatcher the Milk Snatcher", for eliminating free milk for schoolchildren in a round of budget-cutting. After the Conservative Party lost both general elections in 1974, she defeated Edward Heath for the leadership of the party. She was elected Prime Minister in May 1979 and served for eleven and a half years, longer than any other British Prime Minister in the 20th Century. As Prime Minister, she was staunchly capitalist and bent on wiping socialism from the face of Britain. During her tenure, she cut taxes, spending and regulations, privatized state-industries and state-housing, reformed the education, health and welfare systems, was tough on crime and espoused traditional values. Her time in office was eventful, having to contend with an economic recession, inner-city riots and a miners' strike.

Her first great triumph in office was the Falklands War in 1982, when she sent British troops to reclaim British possessions off the coast of South America that had been invaded and occupied by Argentina. The British won that war and it showed the world that Britain was once again a power to be reckoned with. Her time in office saw unprecedented economic prosperity. She was staunch political allies with Ronald Reagan and through their tough foreign and defence policies, brought the Cold War to an end and a victory for the Free World. It was she who persuaded President George Bush to send troops to Saudi Arabia right after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. The Poll Tax and her refusal to endorse a common currency for Europe led the Conservative party to force her out of office in a bloody internal coup. She was forced to resign as Prime Minister in November 1990. Since she left office, she was introduced to the House of Lords in 1992 as Baroness Thatcher. She travelled the world, touring the lecture circuit promoting her causes and is president of numerous organizations dedicated to her causes. In the last few years, her health has suffered and she no longer speaks in public.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: jeff fallis Spouse (1) ( 13 December 1951 - 26 June 2003) (his death) (2 children) Trade Mark (5) Often wore a pearl necklace Trivia (32) She served as the United Kingdom's first female Prime Minister and was the only one until Theresa May assumed the office on July 13, 2016 after David Cameron resigned following the "Brexit" vote, which was the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union. She was raised to the peerage in 1992, thereafter known as Baroness Thatcher. She was targeted for assassination by the IRA. In 1984, she was staying at the Grand Hotel in Brighton for the annual Tory Conference. She was working on her speech when a bomb exploded in the Hotel. She escaped unharmed, but the bomb was meant to kill her. One Conservative MP, one Conservative politician and 4 female attendees all lost their lives. Other members of her government to suffer injuries included Norman Tebbit and John Wakeham . Children: twins Mark Thatcher and daughter Carol Thatcher . In South Africa they have named a nectarine after her.

She was a tax lawyer and a research chemist before entering politics. She is Britain's only 20th-century PM to serve three consecutive terms. Although she was known to dislike the BBC, she was an enthusiastic fan of its comedy series Yes Minister (1980). One of its stars, Paul Eddington , was later awarded a CBE for his services to acting on her recommendation. Before entering politics she was a scientist, at one time working on the chemistry of ice cream. She was voted the 3rd worst Briton in Channel Four's poll of the 100 Worst Britons. She was the subject of several songs, none of them complimentary, including The Beat 's song "Stand Down Margaret" in 1980, "Tramp the Dirt Down" by Elvis Costello (Costello says in the song that he will dance on her grave when she dies) and the Morrissey song "Margaret on the Guillotine".

She is also mentioned in the Pink Floyd song "The Post War Dream" from their 1983 album "The Final Cut" (an album that was written as a rebuke to the Falklands War, abandoning its original concept as a soundtrack for the movie Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)) and Mark Knopfler 's song "Why Aye Man" (written about unemployed Geordie bricklayers and used for the third series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983)) . After Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1984, when performing "Pigs (Three Different Ones"), from 1977's "Animals," which originally attacked British censor Mary Whitehouse , he would sing Thatcher's name in Whitehouse's place in the third verse. She has her look-alike puppet in the French show Les guignols de l'info (1988). She was the inspiration for a Doctor Who (1963) villain, Helen A (played by Sheila Hancock ), in Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol: Part One (1988).

Her likeness was used on the sleeves of two Iron Maiden singles; on the cover of the single 'Sanctuary', she is depicted as having been killed by Maiden's demonic mascot, Eddie, for apparently ripping up and Iron Maiden poster. She gets her revenge, however, on the cover of the single 'Women In Uniform' as a military uniform-wearing Maggie holding a machine gun waits around a corner to ambush Eddie as he approaches with a woman in uniform on either arm. However, despite the graphic sleeves, Maggie finally met with Iron Maiden in 1981. She was educated at Huntingtower Road Primary School and then Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School. She was a descendant from the first marriage, with John Grey, 7th Lord Ferrers of Gorby, of Elizabeth Widville, Queen of England by her second marriage with King Edward IV. In August 2008, daughter Carol Thatcher revealed that her mother had been displaying symptoms of dementia for the previous seven years. She broke her right arm in a fall at her London home in June 2009 and underwent surgery. During her time as British Prime Minister, she cut income tax on the country's top earners by more than half.

When she was elected in 1979, the top rate of income tax had stood at 83% since 1974. She immediately reduced it to 60% and in 1988 her government reduced it again, this time to 40%. She died at London's Ritz Hotel. Many of her political and economic reforms, which were highly controversial at the time they were made, have been adhered to by all subsequent Conservative and Labour governments, including her reductions to income taxation (the top rate of income tax has never exceeded 50% since), her deregulation of the financial sector, her privatisation of public utilities and her sales of council housing stock. Thatcher was a huge admirer of British television presenter and charity fundraiser Jimmy Savile . She regularly invited him to Chequers while she was prime minister and he was knighted on her recommendation in 1990. She wrote a special tribute to him for his episode of This Is Your Life (1962) in 1990, describing him as "truly a Great Briton".

Since his death in 2011, Savile has been revealed to be the country's most prolific sexual offender, with hundreds of reports of sexual abuse against children and adults being recorded by British police. She retired from the lecture/ after dinner speech circuit after several small strokes left her frail in 2004. She was pictured on one of a set of eight British commemorative postage stamps honoring Prime Ministers, issued 14 October 2014. Other prime ministers featured in the set were William Pitt the Younger, Charles Grey, Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Winston Churchill , Clement Attlee , and Harold Wilson . Price of the Churchill, Attlee, Wilson, and Thatcher stamps on day of issue was 97p each. Glenda Jackson stood up in the House of Commons and, during the extended tribute session, said that Margaret Thatcher had done "spiritual damage" to the country and was "not a woman, not on my terms." Although another MP spoke out against this, he was informed by the Speaker that "Nothing Unparliamentary has occurred". Almost twice as many coal mines closed during the two premierships of Labour's Harold Wilson .

More than 290 coal mines closed under Wilson, compared to about 160 under Thatcher, but Thatcher's government closed bigger mines which put far more people out of work and signaled the end of coal mining as a major industry in the UK. Coal mining in the UK would have ended anyway due to the Climate Change Act. Originally wanted to financially compensate the Falkland Islanders for the Argentine invasion in April 1982, rather than go to war to recover the islands. Deindustrialisation in the UK was mainly the result of globalisation and the end of the British Empire. British industries were in terminal decline after World War II and entirely dependent of Marshall Aid from the United States. The UK was overtaken economically by West Germany in 1955, and by France in the early 1960s. Agreed to give Hong Kong back to China in 1984, even though it had been ceded forever to the UK in 1842. Only the New Territories were on a lease. Lampooned in the Dr Who Episode "The Happiness Patrol". A female leader who remained popular despite unpopular decisions.

Some people took to the streets in celebration on hearing of her death, and the song "Hi Ho the Witch is Dead" from the Wizard of Oz got a lot of airplay. Personal Quotes (47) If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman. Capitalism only works by spreading to more of the population what used to be the privileges of the few. Free choice is ultimately what life is about. Good conservatives always pay their bills. Unlike socialists, who just run up other people's. I would never be prepared to give up our own currency. The enemy is socialism and the Labour Party. It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands, when you have spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment.

[the source of her famous (or infamous) quote "there is no such thing as society"] I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations. [on her successor as Prime Minister, John Major ] I don't think I was unkind to him. I supported him a lot--I chose him! I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near. No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions.

He had money as well. That has been a bit of a problem for the Conservatives--Mr. Blair [ Tony Blair ] and the Labour Party sound too much like us. Being Prime Minister is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be--you cannot lead from a crowd. But with Denis [husband Denis Thatcher ] there I was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend. I am profoundly concerned about unemployment. Human dignity and self-respect are undermined when men and women are condemned to idleness. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U- turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning. [on Conservative colleague William Whitelaw , aka "Willie"] Every Prime Minister needs a Willie. I think sometimes the prime minister should be intimidating. There's not much point in being a weak, floppy thing in the chair. The Russians said that I was an iron lady. They were right. Britain needs an iron lady. Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. There will never be anybody else so compelling as Enoch Powell .

He had a rare combination of qualities all founded on an unfaltering belief in God, an unshakable loyalty to family and friends and an unswerving devotion to our country. He was magnetic. Listening to his speeches was an unforgettable privilege. He was one of those rare people who made a difference. [on self-respect] Self-regard is the root of regard for one's fellows. The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. If you do not have charge of your own currency, you do not have charge of your own freedom. The idea that we should give up our own currency is utterly repugnant and I do not think many people would want to give it up. The moment you go to Europe - it's an awful thing, it's a spineless thing. On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns (2001). [on the need for a law to prevent the promotion of homosexuality, which became Section 28] Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.

[on the resignation of Harold Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976] I gave Mr. Wilson a little piece of advice. It was just a suggestion but one I felt was in his interests and those of the country he's led to its present pass. "Go", I said, "and go now". It's always gratifying to be listened to. [on the miners' strike of 1984-85] I must tell you that what we have got is an attempt to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, and it must not succeed. If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim. Our party is the party of equality of opportunity. I am happy that my successor will carry on the excellent policies that in fact have finished with the decline of socialism and have brought great prosperity to this country, which have raised Britain's standing in the world and in fact have brought about a truly capital-owning democracy. Some socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a state computer. We believe they should be individuals. We're all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is quite like anyone else, however much the socialists may pretend otherwise.

And we believe that everyone has the right to be unequal. But to us, every human being is equally important. A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master, they're the essence of a free economy and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend. People from my sort of background needed grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn ( Tony Benn ). I firmly believe in law and order and in standing up for authority, otherwise we should have no free society. [in 1975, after being elected leader of the Conservative party] I am going to have to make it quite clear that Britain is a place where those who have ability can use that ability and if they're successful they can stay here. So many of our successful people intend to go overseas. We want to build a country for successful people here and we use their success to help others. I firmly believe that those who work harder or who have greater ability should get greater rewards and keep them and that as they prosper themselves, so they should prosper others. If you're prepared to save I think you should get some benefit from that.

[on the Housing Act 1980, which gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the right to buy their house from their local authority] It was Anthony Eden who chose for us the goal of "a property-owning democracy". But for all the time that I have been in public affairs, that has been beyond the reach of so many, who were denied the right to the most basic ownership of all--the homes in which they live. They wanted to buy. Many could afford to buy. But they happened to live under the jurisdiction of a socialist council, which would not sell and did not believe in the independence that comes with ownership. [on proposed British integration into the European Union] No, no, no and never. [on the meaning of consensus] The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects. My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.

"To borrow and to borrow and to borrow" is not Macbeth with a heavy cold. It is Labour Party policy. [on being dubbed "The Iron Lady" by a Soviet journalist] If that's how they wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life--and by "they" I mean that somewhat strange alliance between the comrades of the Russian Defence Ministry and our own defence minister--they're welcome to call me whatever they like. [on the caucus of the party eventually challenging her leadership] Treachery with a smile on its face. [on entering 10 Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister] Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. Where there is despair, may we bring hope. [her written tribute to Sir Jimmy Savile on This Is Your Life (1962)] So many Great Britons have had a touch of eccentricity about them and Jimmy is truly a Great Briton.

Miner, wrestler, dance hall manager, disc jockey, hospital porter, fundraiser, performer of good works, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and Knight of the Realm, Jimmy, I and millions more salute you. God bless and thank you. [to Salman Rushdie and his wife, on the fatwa] Nothing can really be done until there's a regime change in Tehran. [on the birth of her first grandchild] We have become a grandmother. My mother used to say that without our monarchy we would be just like . . . Belgium! [in a 1973 interview] I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime. See also Margaret Thatcher - British History - HISTORY.com Margaret Thatcher A+E Networks Introduction Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), the United Kingdom’s first and thus far only female prime minister, served from 1979 until 1990. During her time in office, she reduced the influence of trade unions, privatized certain industries, scaled back public benefits and changed the terms of political debate, much like her friend and ideological ally, U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Nicknamed the “Iron Lady,” she opposed Soviet communism and fought a war to maintain control of the Falkland Islands. The longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, Thatcher was eventually pressured into resigning by members of her own Conservative Party Google Margaret Thatcher: The Early Years Margaret Hilda Roberts, later Margaret Thatcher, was born on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, a small town in Lincolnshire, England. Her parents, Alfred and Beatrice, were middle-class shopkeepers and devout Methodists. Alfred was also a politician, serving as a town council member for 16 years before becoming an alderman in 1943 and mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946. Did You Know? In 2007 Margaret Thatcher became the first living ex-prime minister in British history to be honored with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. It stands opposite a statue of Winston Churchill in the lobby of the House of Commons. Thatcher matriculated at Oxford University in 1943, during the height of World War II .

While there she studied chemistry and joined the Oxford Union Conservative Association, becoming president of the organization in 1946. After graduation she worked as a research chemist, but her real interest was politics. In 1950 she ran for parliament in the Labour-dominated constituency of Dartford, using the slogan “Vote Right to Keep What’s Left.” She lost that year and again in 1951, but received more votes than previous Conservative Party candidates. Margaret Thatcher Enters Parliament In December 1951 Margaret married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman. Less than two years later she gave birth to twins, Carol and Mark. Meanwhile, she was studying for the bar exams, which she passed in early 1954. She then spent the next few years practicing law and looking for a winnable constituency. Thatcher ran for parliament once more in 1959—this time in the Conservative-dominated constituency of Finchley—and easily won the seat. The first bill she introduced affirmed the right of the media to cover local government meetings. Speaking about the bill in her maiden speech, she focused not on freedom of the press but instead on the need to limit wasteful government expenditures—a common theme throughout her political career.

By 1961 Thatcher had accepted an invitation to become parliamentary undersecretary in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. She then steadily moved up the ministerial ranks, becoming secretary of state for education and science when the Conservatives retook power in 1970. The following year she was demonized by her Labour Party opponents as “Thatcher the milk snatcher” when she eliminated a free milk program for schoolchildren. Nonetheless, she was able to keep her job, and in 1975, with the Conservatives back in the opposition, she defeated former Prime Minister Edward Heath to take over leadership of the party. Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister Thatcher was now one of the most powerful women in the world. She rejected the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, who advocated deficit spending during periods of high unemployment, instead preferring the monetarist approach of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

At her first conference speech, she chastised the Labour Party on economic grounds, saying, “A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master—these are the British inheritance.” Soon after, she attacked the Soviet Union as “bent on world dominance.” A Soviet army newspaper responded by calling her “the Iron Lady,” a nickname she immediately embraced. The Conservatives, helped out by a “winter of discontent” in which numerous unions went on strike, won the 1979 election, and Thatcher became prime minister. During her first term, the government lowered direct taxes while increasing taxes on spending, sold off public housing, put in austerity measures and made other reforms, even as rising inflation and unemployment caused Thatcher’s popularity to temporarily wane. In April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a sparsely populated British colony located 300 miles from Argentina and 8,000 miles from the United Kingdom. Thatcher dispatched troops to the area. On May 2, a British submarine controversially sank an Argentine cruiser that was outside of an official exclusion zone, killing over 300 people on board.

Later in the month, British troops landed near San Carlos Bay in East Falkland and, despite persistent air attacks, were able to capture the capital of Port Stanley and end the fighting. The war and an improving economy propelled Thatcher to a second term in 1983. This time around, her government took on the trade unions, requiring them to hold a secret ballot before any work stoppage and refusing to make any concessions during a yearlong miners’ strike. In what became a key part of her legacy, Thatcher also privatized British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, Rolls-Royce and a number of other state-owned companies. On the foreign policy front, Thatcher often found herself allied with U.S. President Ronald Reagan , whom she later described as “the supreme architect of the West’s Cold War victory.” Her relationship with her own continent’s leaders was more complicated, particularly since she believed the Europe Union should be a free-trade area rather than a political endeavor.

“That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European superstate was ever embarked upon will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era,” she wrote in her 2002 book “Statecraft.” In Asia, meanwhile, she negotiated the eventual transfer of Hong Kong to the Chinese. In Africa she had a mixed record, facilitating the end of white minority rule in Zimbabwe but opposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Margaret Thatcher’s Fall From Power After Thatcher was elected to a third term in 1987, her government lowered income tax rates to a postwar low. It also pushed through an unpopular “community charge” that was met with street protests and high levels of nonpayment. On November 14, 1990, former Defense Minister Michael Heseltine challenged her for leadership of the party, partly due to differences of opinion on the European Union. Thatcher won the first ballot but by too small of a margin for outright victory. That night, her cabinet members visited her one by one and urged her to resign. She officially stepped down on November 28 after helping to assure that John Major and not Heseltine would replace her.

Thatcher remained in parliament until 1992, at which time she entered the largely ceremonial House of Lords and began to write her memoirs. Though she stopped appearing in public after suffering a series of small strokes in the early 2000s, her influence remained strong. In fact, many of her free market policies have since been adopted, not only by Conservatives, but also by Labour Party leaders like Tony Blair. In 2011, the former prime minister was the subject of an award-winning (and controversial) biographical film, “The Iron Lady,” which depicted her political rise and fall. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87. Tags Former British Cabinet Member: Margaret Thatcher Was 'Untouched by Antisemitism' | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com Please see the UK Zionist Federation’s statement on Baroness Thatcher here: A statement I wholeheartedly agree with. You can also view it at this link : BARONESS THATCHER WAS A TRUE FRIEND OF ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE We were deeply saddened to learn of Baroness Thatcher’s death. The ZF offers its sincere condolences to her family.

Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green from 1959-1992 and Prime Minister from 1979-1990 was a true friend to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel. She was the first Prime Minister to make an official trip to Israel and energetically opposed the Arab boycott. Thatcher claimed her greatest accomplishment was her work as a child to help save a Jewish teenager in Austria from the Holocaust. In 1938, after correspondence with Margaret Thatcher’s sister, Muriel Roberts, Margaret and her sister set about raising funds for Edith, so she could move to England and escape the mass genocide of Jews in World War Two. During her time as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher frequently condemned Soviet Union officials for their treatment of Refuseniks. Paul Charney, Chairman of the ZF said, “Margaret Thatcher was a loyal friend to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Her continued defence of freedom and democracy worldwide was at one with Israel, the only stable and mature democracy in the Middle East.”

Question: What was former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s maiden name?
Answer: Roberts